ArmTeX, Version 1.0, June 1997
1. Description
Here is an Armenian package for TeX/METAFONT. It can be used
with standard Latin keyboard without any special encoding
and/or support for Armenian letters. It can also be used with
any keyboard which uses encoding having Armenian letters in
the second half (characters 128-255) of extended ASCII table.
This is a freeware package by S. Dachian and V. Hakobian.
Feel free to give copies of this package to your friends, and be
sure to include ALL the files, including this and other text files.
But don't ever change and/or alter the package without our special
permission.
If you have any questions you can contact us via e-mail at:
Serguei.Dachian@univ-lemans.fr
hakobian@ann.jussieu.fr
2. List of Files
You should have the following files in this package
readme.txt - this file
arm10.tex - an input file to use in 10pt TeX/LaTeX
documents with "\input arm10" command
arm11.tex - same as above, but for 11pt documents
arm12.tex - same as above, but for 12pt documents
arm.tex - same as arm10.tex [saves you two
keystrokes :-)]
kbdencod.tex - an input file to use with Armenian
encoded keyboards
artmr10.mf & artmr10.tfm - \
artmb10.mf & artmb10.tfm - \ "Times New Roman"-like Armenian
artmsl10.mf & artmsl10.tfm - / font family containing roman, bold,
artmbs10.mf & artmbs10.tfm - / slanted and bold_slanted styles
artmi10.mf & artmi10.tfm - \ Italic and bold_italic versions
artmbi10.mf & artmbi10.tfm - / of preceding font family
arssr10.mf & arssr10.tfm - \
arssb10.mf & arssb10.tfm - \ Armenian sans serif font family
arsssl10.mf & arsssl10.tfm - / containing roman, bold, slanted
arssbs10.mf & arssbs10.tfm - / and bold_slanted styles
ps2mfbas.mf - Internal file used by all the fonts
first.tex & first.ps - a sample Armenian document in TeX (and
its postscript version in the case
you want to see it before installing
the package)
usage.tex & usage.ps - a document in TeX explaining how you
should type the text if you use a
Latin keyboard
table.tex & table.ps - a document in TeX showing the positions
of symbols in the ASCII table on the
example of "artmr10" font; other
fonts have the same table
3. Installation (for Latin keyboard)
WARNING: The text files "*.mf", "*.tex" and "readme.txt" are in the
UNIX text format. If your system is DOS or Windows, you need first
of all to convert this files (NOT "*.tfm" files!!!) to DOS/Windows
text format (same thing about Mac). You can do it with "unix2dos"
program, or some other utility.
a) Put all the "*.mf" files somewhere your TeX/METAFONT system can
find them (generally this is something like "mfinput" or "source"
directory, refer to your TeX/METAFONT release manual or ask a
local guru).
b) Put all the "*.tfm" files somewhere your TeX/METAFONT system
can find them (generally this is something like "tfm" directory,
refer to your TeX/METAFONT release manual or ask a local guru).
c) Put the files "arm.tex", "arm10.tex", "arm11.tex" and
"arm12.tex" files somewhere your TeX/METAFONT system searches for
inputs (generally this is something like "texinput" directory,
refer to your TeX/METAFONT release manual or ask a local guru).
Now everything is ready, and you should be able to compile the three
example files found in this package: "first.tex", "usage.tex" and
"table.tex" (they are in Plain TeX, not in LaTeX). To type your own
documents (in Plain TeX or LaTeX) just write "\input arm10" (or
arm11, or arm12, or just arm depending on the font size of your
document) somewhere near the beginning of your document. After that,
to write in Armenian in your document you should use one of the
following commands:
\artm - to pass to Armenian times-like roman font,
\artmbf - to pass to Armenian times-like bold font,
\artmsl - to pass to Armenian times-like slanted font,
\artmbfsl - to pass to Armenian times-like bold_slanted font,
\artmit - to pass to Armenian times-like italic font,
\artmbfit - to pass to Armenian times-like bold_italic font,
\arss - to pass to Armenian sans serif roman font,
\arssbf - to pass to Armenian sans serif bold font.
\arsssl - to pass to Armenian sans serif slanted font,
\arssbfsl - to pass to Armenian sans serif bold_slanted font.
They work like, for example, \rm, \bf, \it, etc. commands do.
4. Installation (for Armenian keyboard)
If you have a keyboard which uses encoding having Armenian letters
in the second half (characters 128-255) of extended ASCII table
you can also type your TeX documents directly in Armenian. For this
you need first to accomplish the instructions given in section 3.
Then you have to adjust the file "kbdencod.tex" to your keyboard
(the instructions are given directly in that file). Then you must
copy that modified file in the same place where you put, for
example, "arm.tex" file (refer to section 3.c). To type your own
documents (in Plain TeX or LaTeX) just write "\input arm10" (or
arm11, or arm12, or just arm depending on the font size of your
document) followed by "\input kbdencod" somewhere near the
beginning of your document. After that you can write using your
keyboard in your document exactly as it is described in 3.
5. About fonts
The package have three families of fonts:
a) artmr10, artmb10, artmsl10 & artmbs10 - Serif font (something
like Times New Roman and Computer Modern Roman (CMR) are for Latin
alphabet) with its bold, slanted and bold_slanted versions.
b) artmi10 & artmbi10 - Italic and bold_italic versions of
preceding family.
Fonts from a) and b) where converted from the TrueType font
family "ArTarumianTimes" made by Ruben Hakobian(Tarumian). We would
like to thank him for giving us the permission to use his fonts.
c) arssr10, arssb10, arsssl10 and arssbs10 - Sans serif font
(something like Arial and Computer Modern Sans Serif (CMSS) are
for Latin alphabet) with its bold, slanted and bold_slanted
versions.
Fonts from c) where converted from the PostScript font Sassoun
made by Raffi Kojian (n_w$$h). We would like once more to express
our gratitude to him for giving us the permission to use his
font. Here is some text he asked us to add to this documentation
file:
> This font was originally created and released as "Sassoun" by
> Raffi Kojian. (n_w$$h) Raffi's fonts are freeware and
> stipulated in the attached documentation file that they
> could be distributed freely, but only with the attached
> documentation and without alteration. After e-mailing him,
> permission was given to convert the font to METAFONT format,
> upon the stipulation that this message be attached to the font
> upon distribution and the same conditions that he originally set
> be met for the distribution of this set. It can be freely
> distributed, but only with this documentation, and may not be
> altered by the end user unless express permission is given
> by Raffi Kojian, holder of the copyright. S. Dachian and
> V. Hakobian have permission to re-release this font only in
> METAFONT format and only as long as this message is included
> as a text file. You can reach Raffi on the Internet by searching
> the web for his web pages. (Especially Arminco's Armenian E-mail
> Directory). Raffi's e-mail as of 97/5/10 is kojian@ix.netcom.com
> and his web page with extensive info on Armenia is at
> http://www.netcom.com/~kojian
6. Known problems and workarounds.
a) If you use Latin keyboard you can sometimes run over some
unwanted ligatures (for example sometimes you want to write the
letters 'e' and 'v' as separate letters and not as the letter
'ev') or even some mess of ligatures (for example if you write
the word "dzhbaxt" you mean letter 'd' followed by letter 'zh',
etc., but TeX will understand letter 'dz' followed by letter
'h', etc. The best way to avoid such things is to put
"{\kern0pt}" in such places, i.e. to write "e{\kern0pt}v" or
"d{\kern0pt}zhbaxt" respectively. We did not created a TeX-macro
to stand for "{\kern0pt}", because we think such situations are
quite rare.
b) There is a big problem with hyphenation: TeX doesn't know
about hyphenation of Armenian words, and sometimes it hyphenates
them in a very strange manner. (If you use Latin keyboard you may
even run over a case when TeX will hyphenate your ligatures, so
that you get "t-" and "s" instead of the letter 'ts'.) Moreover
we don't think it is possible to create hyphenation for Armenian
till it is written with Latin keyboard using ligatures (in fact,
writing with Armenian keyboard is quite the same in the current
version of the package). The easiest workaround is to
re-hyphenate each time manually (with "\-"s) the word which
comes out with a bad hyphenation, but this is boring. Another
solution is to disable hyphenation by setting
"\hyphenpenalty=10000", but this may result in a horrible
spacing, and moreover you will be no longer able to hyphenate
words manually. If you know another workaround of this problem
please inform us about it.
c) The spacing and kerning of the fonts may not always look
very good. We keep working on that, and we hope to completely
fix such problems in the future releases.
If you have any other problem [normally you shouldn't ;-)] don't
hesitate to contact us. Any bug reports and/or suggestions for
improving the package are welcome. Our e-mail addresses are:
Serguei.Dachian@univ-lemans.fr
hakobian@ann.jussieu.fr